A federal court has temporarily shut down a national network of debt collectors — one of them based in Boulder — for allegedly threatening consumers with arrest, lawsuit and prosecution if they didn’t pay up.

The Federal Trade Commission complaint in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, N.Y., characterized the enterprise as one that bullied consumers into paying debts without first proving the debts were legitimate, as required by law.

It’s unclear if some debts were bogus, but the lawsuit does say some had either expired or were no longer valid or collectable.

The court froze assets for all the companies as part of a temporary restraining order while the FTC investigates further.

Listing 13 different companies — including Nationwide Check Processing in Boulder — the FTC said each “regularly contacted consumers via repeated telephone calls and have threatened (them) with dire consequences, including arrest, if (they) failed to make immediate payments.”

Some consumers paid — whether or not the debt was real — simply to stop the harassment, the FTC alleged.

All the companies, most based in New York, are owned or operated by Mark Briandi and William Moses. The companies allegedly did not follow legal procedures in collecting a debt, including letting consumers know they had the right to challenge it and that private collection of debts cannot result in an arrest.

Collections that the FTC said runs into the millions of dollars were partly diverted to Empowered Racing, a company whose function was not revealed in the lawsuit.

David is a member of the Investigations Team and has been at The Denver Post since 1999. He was a founding member of the team before writing about banking, finance, human services, consumer affairs, and business investigations. He has also worked at newspapers in New York, St. Louis and Detroit over a 35-year career that began at The Post.

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